Fox News host Sean Hannity reminded the audience at New Holland Arena that the Republican nominee’s Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, declined an invitation to debate Trump that night. That’s why the event instead became a Trump-only town hall.

So far, Harris has agreed to one debate with Trump, set for Sept. 10 with ABC News in Philadelphia. Trump also invited her to appear Sept. 25 on CBS News.

Banter between Hannity and Trump on Wednesday, sprinkled with video montages of Harris’s past statements, filled about 50 minutes that had been allotted—even before a single audience member had been able to ask a question.

Then, Trump suggested, “Let’s make two shows” from the footage; Hannity obliged, and the event continued for about 15 more minutes as Dave McCormick, a Republican candidate for Senate, and four attendees sought answers from the former president. Their questions focused on safety, immigration, and the economy. Trump repeated his past pledges to improve on all three of those fronts.

The network was slated to broadcast the prerecorded Trump–Hannity interview later on Sept. 4; the Trump–audience interactions will air during Hannity’s regular time slot on Sept. 5. Other media outlets, including The Epoch Times, were permitted to report on the exchanges only after the first segment was broadcast at 9 p.m. ET on Sept. 4.

ABC Debate: ‘I’m Gonna Let Her Talk’

After Hannity asked what the former president was doing to get ready for next week’s debate with Harris, Trump replied: “I think I’ve been practicing all my life for this stuff. It’ll be an interesting evening.”

The former president said debates are unpredictable, so a candidate needs to be nimble. Many before him have prepped extensively, only to fail miserably in the heat of debate. “Everybody has a plan until they get ‘punched in the face,’” Trump said, speaking figuratively.

“A lot depends on ABC. … I hope they’re going to be fair,” he said, adding that a contract bars the network from providing questions to either candidate in advance of the showdown.

The Trump and Harris camps had proposed different ground rules for the debate; they disagreed over whether the candidates should be seated or standing, and over whether microphones should be muted while the opposing candidate is speaking.

Trump’s strategy? “I’m gonna let her talk,” he said.

That is what he did on June 27 in Atlanta, where CNN hosted a debate between him and President Joe Biden. The incumbent was widely seen to have struggled during that face-off.

Biden withdrew from the race less than a month later and endorsed Harris as his preferred successor.

Fracking a Big Deal for Pennsylvania

Noting that many thousands of Pennsylvanians depend on fracking for their livelihoods, Trump told the audience, “You have no choice; you’ve gotta vote for me.”

Hannity played multiple video clips of Harris making past statements opposing fracking. Trump said he disbelieves her recent statement that she won’t ban the procedure that is used to help extract gas or oil from the ground. He said Democrats’ policies have directly hurt the industry even without an outright ban.

“You have to have fracking. … It’s a massive business for Pennsylvania, and you can’t take a chance” that Harris would eliminate it, Trump said.

Trump Trending Upward

Hannity noted the town hall came at a time when Trump was trending upward in some of the polls. Those include a Trafalgar Group poll showing Trump ahead of Harris in Pennsylvania by 2 percentage points.

The host said the latest numbers seem to suggest that Harris’s “long-lived honeymoon phase now finally, finally appears to be over.”

In the RealClearPolitics average of opinion polls, Harris was holding a 1.9 percent national lead against Trump on Sept. 4. But a few very recent polls were detecting a shift in momentum.

In Rasmussen Reports’ Daily Presidential Tracking Poll on Sept. 4, Trump opened a six-point lead over Harris nationally. But in Rasmussen’s five-day average, he was only 2 percent ahead of her.

Many other polls still show Harris with an edge over Trump nationally, but still within the margin of error, which runs at 3 percent or more for most polls.

An online prediction and betting site, Polymarket.com, on Sept. 4 showed Trump with a 52-percent chance of winning the Nov. 5 election; Harris had a 47-percent chance.

Contrast With Harris–Walz Accessibility

Hannity noted that Harris has given no solo news conferences since she became the apparent Democratic nominee 45 days prior to the Fox town hall.

She and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, participated in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Aug. 29 but disclosed no new policy specifics. And, as of Sept. 4, no policy platform was yet listed on Harris’s website.

Hannity contrasted this with the dozens of news conferences and interviews Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), have given since Biden dropped out of the race.

After Trump passed the 16-minute, 30-second mark into the program, Hannity thanked him for going longer than Harris’s CNN interview; the audience laughed.

Heightened Security

Hannity and Trump have appeared together for many broadcasts since Trump first campaigned for president in 2016. But “never before have restrictions been so tight,” Hannity said.

In the wake of a gunman’s failed assassination attempt against Trump on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, Trump’s security team insisted on a smaller audience for the Fox town hall, Hannity said. Seating arrangements were also strictly controlled.

No attendance estimate was provided, but the arena, which holds 7,300 people, appeared to be about one-third full.

Hannity and Trump expressed sadness over the Georgia school shooting that left at least four people dead and nine wounded hours before the town hall.

In addition, Hannity also noted that FBI Director Christopher Wray recently warned about an unprecedented spike in security threats.

When Hannity wondered aloud why so many problems with violence and threats persist, Trump replied, “It’s a sick and angry world for a lot of reasons,” expressing confidence that he will improve conditions if he wins reelection.

“It starts now, Trump!” one man in the audience said.

Reassuring ‘Hesitant’ Voters

A woman asked Trump what he had learned from his first term as president that could help reassure “those that are hesitant to vote for [him] now.”

Trump replied that he learned the importance of putting the right people into key positions in his administration.

“I put people in, that in some cases were not what I really wanted. … I know the good ones, the bad ones, the weak ones, the smart ones, the dumb ones,” he said, his last phrase prompting a chuckle from the audience. “A big key to running it is getting the right people. … I know now the people, and I know them better than anybody.”

He turned his GOPe spokesperson talents against Congresswoman Lauren Boebert on his show tonight. He questioned why McCarthy should stand down when he has 203 (it’s actually 201 but who’s counting?) supporters on his side while his opposition only has 20. On the surface, it’s a fair question. But the reality is McCarthy has 201 Representatives who are WILLING to let him be Speaker of the House. He does NOT have 201 members who WANT him there.

The fallacy in Hannity’s argument is to assume that nobody could get 218 or more votes from among the 222 Republicans. This is unambiguously false. There are several members who would easily get 218 votes in the caucus and at least a few who would get all 222. McCarthy’s support is by default for many who are voting for him because he has positioned himself as the de facto Speaker. But if you ask his 201 “supporters” if they really want him there rather than simply having a willingness to accept him, you’d find the ranks of his “supporters” would drop dramatically.

I would guesstimate that fewer than a dozen Representatives PREFER McCarthy over all other viable candidates. The lukewarm supporters just haven’t been handed a consensus candidate; thus far none of the Representatives nominated by the band of 20 opposition voters have had universal appeal. This is by design.

The strategy is actually a good one by Matt Gaetz and those standing with him against McCarthy. They are wearing the caucus down with choices that are ideal to the Freedom Caucus like Andy Biggs, Jim Jordan, and Byron Donalds. That’s how negotiations start; you offer up your best-case-scenarios as the starting point and work your way down from there. If their end goal is to have a consensus Speaker, they will nominate someone less “right wing” soon, someone like Steve Scalise or even former Congressman Lee Zeldin. They would have someone very well spoken offer the nomination with a heartfelt plea on the floor after garnering support from some of the members currently supporting McCarthy. As McCarthy sheds votes and shows no signs of recovery, he will be obliged to stand down.

Hannity knows this. That’s why he’s trying so hard to subvert them now knowing in the long run they will prevail.

Conservatives have been compromising for decades at the behest of Swamp mouthpieces like Hannity. It has only worked to keep the Establishment firmly in control. I would argue with a near certainty that Hannity’s forked tongue is, at least in part, what got Donald Trump to back people like Dr. Mehmet Oz and now Kevin McCarthy in the first place.

Here’s the first part of the interview. Admittedly, I couldn’t make it all the way through listening to him constantly interrupt Boebert while simultaneously claiming she was talking over him. Anyone who can stand to watch the whole thing can do so here.

How long has @seanhannity been owned by the Uniparty Swamp? Has it been his whole career or did this just happen in the last few years?

Either some entity has leverage over him, someone's paying him to be this way, or he's always been a serpent who hates this nation.

— JD Rucker (@JDRucker) January 5, 2023

The strategy Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, and their fellow conservatives are engaged in is working properly. Soon, they will nominate a consensus candidate and McCarthy will stand down. It’s not ideal, but we need someone better than McCarthy to hold the gavel.

Leave a comment about this post on my Substack.

Senator Ted Cruz went on with Fox News host Sean Hannity to discuss the current border wars. No, he wasn’t just talking about the invasion at the southern border itself. He was mostly referring to the ongoing battles between the Biden-Harris regime and a couple of Republican governors, all of whom are shipping illegal aliens to destinations of their choosing.

While corporate media and Democrat lemmings decry moves by Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for sending an infinitesimal percentage of their states’ illegal aliens to Democrat cities and leftist enclaves, they ignore the fact that the regime in DC has been doing this since the beginning of their reign. The difference is Republicans are doing it publicly while the Biden-Harris regime has been doing it under the cover of night and with as little exposure as possible.

“Right now, the biggest human trafficker on the face of the planet is Joseph Robinette Biden Jr,” the Senator said. “He has transported hundreds of thousands, millions of illegal aliens, populating them… now putting many of them in red states. He’s happy to put them in red states where it’s not the rich people’s concerns. It’s the little people’s concerns.”

Watch:

The biggest human trafficker on the face of the planet: Joe Biden. pic.twitter.com/C7BW2sP16D

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 17, 2022

Without mentioning him by name, host Dan Bongino lambasted anyone at the network who still believe there are just “a few bad apples” at the FBI.

“Then you say, well, it’s just a few bad apples,” he told Brian Kilmeade on Fox & Friends. “Is it? Let’s just go through the list of names of people who’ve been involved in either alleged corruption or documented corruption at the FBI. We got Jim Comey, Andy McCabe, Bill Priestap. Yep, I had to write this down so I didn’t forget them all. Jim Baker. Lisa Page. Peter Strzok. … Timothy Thibault.

“Granted, everybody’s innocent until proven guilty. I accept that. But it’s not one bad apple. It’s a rotten orchard. … The DOJ’s saying we don’t need a special master to review this, just trust us. We review it ourselves with the FBI. Right, you know what? I’m going to take a hard pass on that because we trusted you in the past and you told us there was a peepee tape, Russian collusion and a DNC hack, and you’ve backed up absolutely none of that. So I’m going to give them a big zero on the credibility scale.”

Watch: